Immortal

by Nick M Lloyd

  In non-Ankor news, the police had confirmed a small uptick in violent crimes being reported, however they had explicitly ruled out any coordinated activity. It was simply a result of increased stress.

  Appeasement …

  That was the word that MIDAS had picked up on. Still only trending in small volumes, but growing daily.

  ‘Hi Sam,’ called Charlie, coming through from the kitchen and planting a kiss on her mouth.

  After lingering on the kiss for what she hoped was an appropriate time, Sam pulled gently away. ‘All okay with you?’

  ‘Fine.’ Charlie smiled warmly and returned to the kitchen.

  ‘The prime minister is doing well,’ said Sam.

  ‘He’s steady, not spectacular,’ said Charlie. ‘How’s work?’

  ‘All good thanks. My OrcLore data collation is going well. MIDAS is auto-generating questions based on in-game user responses,’ said Sam. ‘Have you heard anything more about the Ankor?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Sam. The fact that MacKenzie was in the COBRA meetings and Charlie was his right-hand man suggested this was improbable.

  Charlie’s head twitched. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well …’ said Sam, levering herself out of her wheelchair. ‘Shit!’

  A jolt of pain temporarily stopped her movement. She always forgot to take it slowly after being in the chair for over an hour. Her muscles had locked up.

  Charlie put down the wooden spoon and walked over to help her.

  ‘I can manage,’ she said, shooing him away. Sam pushed herself more tentatively up and out of her wheelchair.

  Fucking prison …

  Then, with a small painful shuffle, she moved across to a kitchen chair and sat down. ‘I mean the Ankor. What they are doing and saying to the government?’

  ‘I’ve been told nothing,’ said Charlie. ‘That shouldn’t surprise you. You know how Francis is about compartmentalisation.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Sam. ‘What about MedOp? The rumour that MedOp is ranking application forms doesn’t seem to be going away.’

  ‘People are being treated fairly,’ said Charlie.

  ‘And their data still isn’t being packaged individually?’ asked Sam – it was her stock question to Charlie. Her eyes were drawn to a framed letter she kept behind the kettle.

  The letter was from an insurance company stating that they were taking her to court for fraud over her injury claim. The police had been involved and hadn’t been very supportive, even when the fraud was traced back to a nurse who’d worked on the ward where Sam had spent months in traction. The nurse had stolen Sam’s private data from the hospital database but, critically, had also got useful information from Sam’s social media pages. If it hadn’t been for Tim’s private sleuthing – he’d used a prototype of MIDAS to find unusual spending patterns, linking Sam, the nurse and some outrageous holiday photos posted on Instagram – then it might have gone badly for her.

  The real victory for Sam was that it fully opened her eyes with regard to misuse of data. She and Tim had an ongoing ideological argument about whether data theft – a crime – and people willingly giving away their data – not a crime – were comparable.

  ‘All the participants agreed to sell their data for the treatment,’ said Charlie – his stock answer.

  Sam felt very strongly about how the data was used. She’d designed and coded a large part of the anonymisation routine – the so-called ‘n greater than 5’ module – that lay on top of the aggregation logic. The module allowed MacKenzie to tell regulators, or other government officials, that a complex algorithm facilitated mining data for commercially useful information whilst also protecting individuals.

  So far, MIDAS had only operated with Sam’s routine active … as far as she knew. MacKenzie had made Sam add override flags such that data could be presented on an individual basis – for emergency purposes.

  ‘How’s tension in the office?’ asked Charlie, bringing Sam back to the present.

  ‘Toby has spent the last two days close to tears,’ said Sam. ‘Tim’s more stoic, but he does occasionally lapse into analysis of what would happen if the aliens attack.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Typically, he extends the timeframe of his simulation until he finds a positive outcome.’ Sam paused. ‘He said it would be good for the icecaps and the rhinos, but the Ankor are probably too late to save the pandas.’

  Sam chuckled. She loved Tim’s irreverent humour.

  Charlie didn’t acknowledge the joke.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘They’re not invading,’ he said.

  Carefully reaching over, Sam grabbed her rucksack off the back of her wheelchair and emptied it onto the table. She laid out her top-of-the-range gaming mouse and keyboard. ‘I’ve got a tournament at the weekend. The Bitches need to win three of four games to reclaim top spot. Do you want to play later?’

  ‘Probably not,’ said Charlie, taking a break from stirring the saucepan to flex his wrist and hand muscles. ‘You go ahead though.’

  Early in their relationship – as friends, and subsequently as a couple – they’d played a lot, and Charlie had been very good. Over the last year, they’d played much less.

  Rather like our sex life …

  Not that the lack of sex really bothered Sam; full intercourse was tricky with her medical condition, and basically relied on her lying very still.

  But gaming she could still do. The Bruised and Broken Bitches was Sam’s team, all female, all wheelchair bound, and a force to be reckoned with. They were good, frequently winning regional tournaments … when the fourteen-year-old Jappers weren’t around. Not that she called them that to their faces; she was politically correct when on the record.

  ‘Is it a big tournament?’

  ‘Not really. The Den is hosting a series of local games. Do you want to come?’

  She was just asking out of politeness. In just over two years of their relationship, Charlie had only met her teammates a few times. Captain of the Triple-Bs was Sam’s alter-ego, her escape. Her approach wasn’t unusual; nobody on the team wanted to associate her gaming life with her daily routine.

  Of course, her teammates knew all about Charlie. He represented big kudos for Sam at the gaming lair. It was nothing to do with him being Francis MacKenzie’s right-hand man, either – in fact, that counted against him. No, Charles Taylor was well respected in the world of computer game development. As part of his post-doctorate, he’d worked at Imperial College on behaviour simulations, designing code that had made amazing leaps in the behavioural patterns of NPCs – non-player characters. It was the reason Sam cursed Charlie’s name when the city guards found her hiding behind the food barrels – without Charlie’s code, those guards would have never ‘thought’ to look for people hiding.

  It had also earned Charlie a nickname in the gaming industry – ‘Father of NPCs’.

  Sam pulled out her laptop and booted up. She couldn’t get a network connection. The internet providers were restricting logons.

  Charlie indicated towards his phone on the kitchen table. ‘You can hot spot off my mobile.’

  ‘You’ve got internet?’

  ‘One of the few benefits of my relationship with Francis MacKenzie.’

  ‘What’s he focusing on today?’ asked Sam.

  ‘He’s going to Anglesey to accelerate the launch programme,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You too?’ Sam noticed the tiny burst of hope that accompanied the question.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie, carrying two plates of pasta over to the table.

  As he put down the plates, his shirt sleeve rode up. A bandage was clearly visible, almost entirely covering his right forearm.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Sam, pointing at his arm.

  He shrugged. ‘It’s nothing.’

  Sam hadn’t seen Charlie for a few days, but the bandage looked recent. Involuntarily, she thought back to the last time she’d seen Charlie with hi
s clothes off.

  Months ago.

  She’d seen a long thin scar on his leg on that occasion – too straight and regular to have been the bramble scratch he’d claimed.

  Is Charlie self-harming?

  She couldn’t rule it out, although she noted other reasons for the injury were more likely.

  If it was self-harm, then perhaps it was an act of devotion. Sam certainly didn’t want to ask that; the conversation would undoubtedly circle back to his faith and she didn’t want to go there. That was one area of Charlie’s life she couldn’t fathom. He had deep spiritual beliefs, not that he ever discussed them – and neither did Sam ever ask. For her, the concept of an all-powerful god – who’d decided to cripple her and make her shit into a bag for two years – just felt impossible to stomach.

  He may be doing it out of solidarity?

  That wasn’t it either … probably.

  Sam looked at Charlie appraisingly. Her feelings for him had been cooling for some time now. She should have left him a year ago when they’d stopped playing together on a regular basis: gaming and sex.

  Except that he adores you.

  Sam ignored the small voice. It was just a perverse area of her subconscious stirring things up. There was a myriad of reasons to work on the relationship, and concerns about her ability to find someone else didn’t even make the top five. Sam shook her head to clear it. It could be that the slow spiral she found herself in with Charlie would improve. In any case, she couldn’t dump Charlie: Tim would shit kittens, as it could impact their financial settlement from MacKenzie.

  After the accident, Tim had spent all his energies investigating treatments for Sam’s injuries. When Sam had asked him not to, he’d said he would rein it in. Then she found out he’d simply done it behind her back instead: reviewing clinical cases in journals, speaking to surgeons, and generally becoming an expert in lower spinal injuries. Now Tim wanted the maximum financial reward from MacKenzie so that they could afford to pay for a ground-breaking neural treatment provided by Dr Hung in South Korea. It would be a two-month residential stay with nerve-splicing operations every four days, for a cool three hundred grand.

  Just the money and the two-year waiting list to get through.

  Sam didn’t want to get her hopes up. She had already undergone three surgeries in the UK. Her bowels now worked almost normally, and she could sleep lying on her back. However, the operations had not materially improved her mobility, and she still suffered from periodic crippling pain.

  Dr Hung was not the only option. Against Tim’s wishes – on the basis that it was definitely not his body – Sam had done her own research into a new pain management approach that comprised irreversible nerve removal. That operation would sort the pain – but would consign Sam to a wheelchair forever.

  Swings and roundabouts …

  Aware that she hadn’t spoken for a while, Sam looked over towards Charlie. He was deep in concentration, so she used his phone to connect her laptop to MIDAS and kicked off a search on latest news.

  Ankor invasion: nothing new

  ***

  Ankor saviours: nothing new

  ***

  Ankor this: nothing new

  ***

  Ankor that: nothing new

  ***

  Violence Uptick

  Australia: Reports of heroin addicts killed with poisoned methadone

  Brazil: Churches burned

  Nothing new since she’d left the office.

  Sam entered a more specific search.

  MacKenzie Anglesey

  The returns confirmed it was now common knowledge that launch sites worldwide had been told to be ready to send materials up into near Earth orbit. ‘Charlie, do you have any idea what materials the Ankor are asking for?’

  ‘None,’ said Charlie, clearly closing down the conversation.

  Sam’s phone buzzed. A text from Tim.

  All okay?

  Sam texted an ‘all fine’ message back to Tim, kicking herself a little. She’d promised to text Tim to let him know when she was safely home.

  Normally, if he’d asked her to do something so patronising, she’d have told him to sod off, but the atmosphere on the streets was strained. He’d walked her to the end of her road but refused her invite to come up for an evening drink.

  Her eyes drifted over to Charlie.

  I wonder why.

  CHAPTER 5

  Whitehall, Thursday 11th April

  Frustratingly, Colonel Martel found himself in London on the day he was supposed to be leading an inspection of SpaceOp in Anglesey. It wasn’t a major problem – his second-in-command, Captain Whaller, was entirely capable of performing a thorough initial review – but it rankled.

  On his journey to Whitehall, he’d seen cars stuffed full, inching along the roads – people heading for somewhere less inviting for an alien invasion fleet than London.

  Would the Ankor really give humanity a two-week warning of invasion? Or is it a double bluff?

  Heading down into the bowels of Whitehall, Martel reflected on the latest COBRA meeting. It had also gone around in circles, mostly focused on mundane issues such as the various crashed websites as people tried to move money, or get holiday bookings refunded.

  On the actual subject of alien arrival, the politicians had all felt a need to represent their views, but – critically – none of them had any relevant expertise.

  Do we send the materials up?

  In public, the prime minister only ever gave the impression that the British government would comply fully with the Ankor’s requests. But it was more complicated than that, and the Ankor broadcast had ruled out meaningful interaction on the subject.

  Which, in itself, is suspicious.

  Inside the secure room Joshua Timbers, already seated, was talking to someone Martel had not met. He looked American: Caucasian, mid-40s, tanned, perfect teeth, smartly dressed, and manicured.

  The prime minister indicated for Martel to take a seat. ‘This is James Piper. He arrived this morning from Washington. We’re sharing information. Full clearance.’

  Piper leant forward in his seat and held out his hand. Martel shook it.

  The prime minister kicked off the discussion. ‘Our radar returns now indicate the craft is almost certainly cubic, and five miles long on each side.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Piper.

  ‘There is the faintest hint of an aura around it,’ added Martel, ‘as if something far less dense extends beyond the main structure.’

  ‘Ideas?’ asked the prime minister.

  ‘Our current best guess,’ said Martel. ‘A communications network … a giant mesh of interconnected antennae.’

  Timbers turned to the American and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Feasible,’ said Piper. ‘We certainly don’t have a better idea.’

  Ah …

  Not good news. Martel had hoped for more. ‘Have the US been asked for plutonium?’

  Piper shook his head. ‘No. Just scraps of metal and glass.’

  ‘Why haven’t the US government broadcast this to other launch sites?’ asked Martel.

  ‘The whole US programme is being run by the military,’ said Piper. ‘You’re lucky that I’m even allowed to be here.’

  ‘What’s your take on the plutonium?’ the prime minister asked him.

  ‘Plutonium has a large fear factor,’ said Piper. ‘Which isotopes have you been asked for?’

  ‘Not specified; we are assuming they can manipulate it as they wish,’ replied Martel: plutonium-238 was useful for generating electric power, plutonium-240 was fission bomb material, others were simply radioactive poisons. It was hard to second-guess the Ankor motives without more detail. ‘Do you have any weaponised satellites?’

  ‘That’s a pointed question,’ said Piper, smiling. ‘You did hear me say I’m lucky to be here.’

  The prime minister cut in. ‘I am pretty sure I agreed full disclosure with your President.’

  ‘We have some c
onventional satellite busters. Nothing that can travel even one percent as fast as the Ankor. But, if they settled into a steady orbit, we have options.’ Piper paused. ‘Unfortunately, all our weapons are controlled by radio transmissions.’

  ‘Highly encrypted, though?’ asked Timbers.

  ‘Just as highly encrypted as the channels the Ankor have already swept through.’

  ‘How do you think they overwhelmed Earth’s communication network?’ asked the prime minister.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Piper. ‘The theories at the Pentagon are manifold: artificial intelligence hidden in our internet, self-replicating virus, or an inside job.’ Piper paused. ‘We’re looking at all of the options.’

  ‘We doubt the existence of an Earth-based Ankor artificial intelligence,’ said Martel. ‘We have not ruled out that they are working with someone on Earth. Our current assumption is along the lines of your self-replicating virus idea – programmed to act, and then self-erase. We’ve found no traces of it.’

  ‘The home secretary,’ said the prime minister, ‘told me that the internet network feeds linked into MacKenzie’s SpaceOp base in Anglesey are showing incredible volumes of data heading that way.’

  ‘There’s nothing unusual about internet activity surrounding any of his known installations,’ said Martel. ‘It’s been extremely high ever since MedOp was launched.’

  ‘I will ask MacKenzie about the data volumes,’ said Timbers. ‘He knows we’re keeping an eye on him and that his leadership of the UK response is predicated on my goodwill.’

  Martel nodded his approval; even though the Ankor had explicitly asked Timbers to keep MacKenzie in charge, it wouldn’t hurt to remind MacKenzie that he was under close observation.

  ‘Is Francis MacKenzie a suspect?’ asked Piper.

  ‘We’ve no evidence of wrongdoing,’ said Martel. Doubts about MacKenzie’s loyalties were purely circumstantial. He happened to: have a strong interest in space and aliens, a rocket launch capability, and a history of ruthless pursuit of his goals. ‘Do you have anything?’